REND

“Ok, ok,” Myra said, “so it looks like Deen's predicting Blank’s moves. Heightened senses? Hyper intuition?”

“She’s doing things even before Blank made a move in a certain direction,” Everett said. “She’s also stopping her punches and kicks way too early for hyper intuition. And she’s also evading weirdly.”

Myra said, “Blank, I know we’re doing a guessing game, but we should be able to ask you questions since you were the one who fought her.” Dario gestured for her to go ahead, and she said, “Did you think about doing specific moves to attack or block her?”

“Of course, I think about it. What do you mean?”

“Come on. Don’t play dumb. I bet when you tried to catch her fist and she didn’t follow through finishing her punch, you thought she had mind-reading powers. That would be my first assumption too. If it were me, I'd think of various fake ways I'm going to attack and check her reaction and how she moved. Did you do that? And did she react the way you expected her to?”

“It crossed my mind. But if Deen’s power is mind reading, then she'd see through the fake intentions. Instead, I cleared my head and relied on instinct, mostly focusing on reacting. Even if she could read my mind, she doesn’t have experience fighting and would process it too slowly. I gradually increased my speed in attacking for that reason. With enough speed, it'll be as if she wouldn’t have mind-reading powers anyway.”

“Oops, you’re right. That’s smart.”

“I discounted the possibility of mind-reading. The way she moved was incompatible with it. It’s more like she knew my next few moves before I thought of them. She's trying to evade them all way in advance because she doesn’t have the skills to avoid them as they come.”

“If it’s not mind-reading or hyper intuition, is it prescience?” Everett said.

Myra frowned. “Prescience?”

“Precognition, future sight, foreknowledge?”

“Fancy terms. But seriously, precognition? Do Corebrings even have someone who can predict the future?”

Dario said, “There are rumors of Corebring precogs. Our population has exploded since the end of World War II, but we are living in relatively peaceful times. One would think the Adumbrae seeding rate will increase proportionally with population, but we have only this one Purple Bloom at Madagascar for the last several years, compared to multiple at the same time at the start of the Adumbrae invasion. It's not far-fetched to assume Corebrings have precogs detecting future disasters. And if Corebrings can have this power, then we also have a chance of manifesting such a power, even if only a weaker version of it. Precognition is also my guess.”

“Wait,” I said. “Jumping into the discussion here. I’m going to share how we found Ramello’s room in the hospital, if that’s okay with you, Deen?” She assented so I told them about it. “That couldn’t have been precognition, right? She couldn’t check the future to know where we should go because we don’t know where to go in the first place.”

“Unless Deen was checking the past? What floor the cop came from? Future and past sight?” Our guessing game went on for a few more minutes until Dario put a stop to it and said, “So, Deen, what is it? Our best guess right now is that you have visions rewinding the past and fast-forwarding to the future.”

Deen giggled. “I wish it were that then I wouldn’t have a hard time figuring out what to do. Precognition is close, but also not.” She took a deep breath before the big reveal. “I have something I call a Guardian Angel,” she said, waving to space above her right shoulder.

Myra gave an incredulous snort. “A Guardian Angel? A summon like Obe’s? We can’t see it.” Dario and Everett echoed Myra. I also couldn’t see anything out of place near Deen.

“It’s invisible, but it’s there. I tested it with the security cameras at home; it doesn’t show up. I also ordered a thermal and infrared camera online, and I even bought those ghosthunting cameras; I’m not sure if they’re real. By the way, Erind, those were the boxes I was trying to hide from you last week. Nothing is showing up. I think only I can see it."

"What does it look like?"

"A cute baby gargoyle shaped like an egg made of ivory with faint gold, feathery wings. And only I can touch it. It’s incorporeal for other people and things.”

“This…Guardian Angel of yours, how does it work? It can see the past and the future?”

“Only the future. Possible futures to be exact, and it’s processing them at lightning speed. I know this because when I tried touching it one time, it shared its thoughts with me.” Deen shuddered at the memory. “It…it was just too much. The result was me curled up on the floor of my room, having a severe seizure, my nose bleeding. My head hurt so bad I was bawling. I concentrated on not screaming because sis and Erind were in the house.”

“Was that the night you didn’t go out of your room and suddenly canceled your date with Adrian?” I said, checking Everett’s reaction to what I said.

“Yes, that was it. And it wasn’t a date.” She glared at me. “To be fair, my Guardian Angel did tell me ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you’ when I reached for it. That’s basically how it works. It processes things and just tells me inside my head what to do. During the fight with Dario, it says stuff like, ‘He’ll catch your hand when you punch’ or ‘A left kick’, and so on.

“For that time at the hospital, I assume it scanned the possible futures for each button in the elevator and it told me, ‘I'd press six if I were you.’ It’s more than just seeing the future. But, technically it’s my Guardian Angel doing all that. It then just tells me what to do given the situation.”

“I’ve never heard of an ability similar to that before,” Dario said.

“I suppose I have to share my weaknesses too. Disclaimer alert, this is all my observation. I’m still not a hundred percent sure of how it works, especially its limitations.”

“We’ll help you figure it out. That’s what we’re here for. We all had to go through that process. Eventually, you’ll understand your power. Taking a guess, the main weakness is its range?” In response to Deen’s astonished face, he said, “That wasn’t some brilliant deduction. All of us start like that. Not just us, Adumbrae and the real Corebrings too. We are technically affecting the world with energy from a higher dimension. Start small. As we get the hang of it and siphon more power from a world, not ours, our abilities are amplified.”

“I'd say that’s the main weakness.”

I snapped my fingers. “Is that the reason why you always wanted me close to you when you said you can protect me with your powers?”

“Exactly,” Deen said. “I can tell if something bad was about to happen to you if you're next to me. Let’s say someone's about to shoot you, my Guardian Angel might say, ‘Pull Erind down’, or something to that effect. But if you were in another room, it’s not going to tell me to run over to you to save you. If it’s going to tell me to do something or use a certain object, I have to be near that person or item for it to prompt.”

“Like the elevator buttons,” I said. Deen nodded in agreement.

“If someone is going to shoot you from afar, a sniper for example,” Myra mused, “it’s not going to tell you anything?”

“I think it will. Let's say if I go out of a building I'll get shot by a waiting sniper, my Guardian Angel would see the future me dead on the ground and tell me to just stay inside. It predicts what happens to me and those within a short radius of me. And it’s not just a limitation on physical distance. The distance in…time is also affected. Sorry, I don’t know how to properly word it.”

Dario said, “I get it. You mean how far into the future it’s scanning possibilities and then advising you what to do?”

“That’s it! During our fight, it’s pretty obvious it’s telling me something in the immediate future, a few seconds forward. But for the elevator thing, and this is just my guess here, it scanned the consequences for each button maybe for ten minutes in the future. I’m not sure yet what my limit is but I'm sure it won't alert me about something an hour into the future.

"The consolation is it will tell me how to avoid or mitigate the bad outcome maybe ten minutes before it’s coming. In that sense, I have to be careful in deciding to follow what it says because I might end up in a scenario where I shouldn't have entered an hour ago and now I don't have any way out. ”

“Damn, that’s still useful as heck,” Myra said. “Despite its limitations, we can avoid plenty of dangers with it.”

“The other weakness, at least I consider it as one, is the advice given by my Guardian Angel is short. It doesn’t elaborate on things. The advice to choose the sixth floor at the hospital could've meant Ramello was on the sixth floor, which it did. But in a different situation, it could mean go to the sixth floor, even if Ramello wasn't there because the other floors are dangerous. During the Bianca mission earlier, it told me to go along with Erind. Just that.”

"See, your Guardian Angel thinks I'm trustworthy," I said with a smile.

“These short advice...it may be minimizing the scope of the instruction so that the ‘safe’ future option won’t be affected much,” Dario guessed. “I hypothesize that when your Guardian Angel processes what to tell you, it includes possibilities of your actions when given certain advice. This might be a safeguard to keep the advice as relevant as possible for the next ten minutes or so that it calculated the future.”

“I didn’t get much of that,” Myra said. “But having something that could calculate the future is a huge benefit on the side of the good guys.”

“This is merely the start of it,” Dario reminded her. “When Deen’s power develops, I’m sure she can do more things with her Guardian Angel."

I made a mental note I should be mindful of my actions when Deen was around. On the other hand, her powers could also be helpful to me someday.

Dario and Deen continued with their practice. Their names sound good for a talk show, the ‘Dario and Deen Show’ or ‘Learning to fight Adumbrae with Dario and Deen’.

Determined to learn, it was evident that Deen was giving it her all, even asking Dario to activate his field for a few seconds at a time to adapt to its effects. They distanced themselves away from us so I wouldn’t puke burger and root beer slushie all over the place.

Everett continued watching videos on his phone, sunbathing in the rays of light pouring from the wide opening high above the atrium that would've been covered by a glass ceiling if the building’s construction was finished. As for Myra, she went down to get dressed and catch a nap. I'd been to their hideout before; it was a small dingy room they cleaned up and outfitted with various second-hand furniture they brought over to make them comfortable.

I switched to studying for real, my talk with Deen about what she planned to do after this was all over came to mind. She was correct. Someone rich enough could avoid getting tested. The trick was to stay as human in appearance as possible and not invite suspicion.

I did keep an ear open to eavesdrop on Dario’s and Deen’s conversations if there was anything important. She asked him where he learned to fight. Something vague about a stint with the Free Will Initiative was his answer. That explained his motivation to fight Adumbrae, and his skills and know-how. Was it connected with the tattoo on his back? It didn’t look like any of the logos of the Initiative and its affiliated organizations.

After an hour or so, Johann and Reo arrived bringing a couple of boxes of pizza. They brought a foldable table and plastic chairs from the hideout, and we had a mini pizza party in the middle of the abandoned building. Eerie but scenic. The heist planning montage part of the movie began.

Which didn’t amount to much because Reo couldn’t get Sneak, his stealth fairy, into the secret area of the Eve club.

“I’m sure there’s something below Eve,” he said. “Places like that always have something sketchy in the basement. Drug den, illegal fighting pit, fetish club—”

Myra snorted. “You seem to know an awful lot about what’s going on in the basement of clubs.”

“—VIP lounge, there’s gotta be a VIP room in a club,” Reo continued, ignoring Myra. “I couldn’t find anything. It was cool inside, I’ll give them that, and looks expensive as hell, but that doesn’t make sense for their exclusivity policy. The problem is if no one goes to that secret room, or even opens it, then Sneak can’t get in. I tried attaching Sneak to various people, but nada.”

“The heck? We’re not even sure if it’s the right place?” Myra said. “Deen, did your Angel tell you anything when Bianca invited you to Eve?”

“No, but it couldn’t have anyway. That’s too far in the future remember?”

“It’s the right place,” Reo insisted. “We saw Stella guarded by Dekano inside. Too bad they were already leaving when we arrived.”

“At least we’re sure of the location,” Dario said. For Deen’s and my benefit, he explained, “Stella is the personal assistant or executive secretary of Big Marcy. We’re not exactly sure what’s her position, but it’s quite high up. Dekano is one of the augs of Big Marcy. Strong guy.”

Myra scoffed, “His system is not as sophisticated as Jim Ambrose’s so I’m not afraid of him.”

“They probably don’t open the secret area of the club unless there’s a scheduled fight. It has to be this Saturday. The question is what to do.”

“We get in, of course!” Reo said. “Deen and Erind can do some undercover gig again. If confirmed something sketchy is inside, they call us, we bust the place up.”

Dario said, “How does that help us in finding the Red Island though?” Reo held up a finger, put it down, and shrugged. Dario continued, “We have to focus on our goal. There’s no benefit if we attack the place.”

“There’s no way they’re keeping their experiments at Eve, right?” Everett said. “Too dangerous. If I were in their shoes, I'll have the monster delivered on the day of the fight. As close to the fight as possible. I wouldn’t want it stored at the club for too long. Look at what happened at the docks when one of their monsters escaped.”

“Correct. We need the delivery truck and where it’s going after. Johann?”

“Sure thing,” Johann said, giving a thumbs up. “I’ll just work into the night later at the office, will say over time, need to finish something, then hack the computer of the boys at accidents and collisions, tap into the MetroTraffic feed records. I’ll get the records of the traffic cam feeds of the streets around Eve for every Saturday for the past…?”

“Three months should be enough. We’ll make copies and share the footage with the seven of us. The more eyes looking for a suspicious truck, the better. It’s Thursday now. We should aim to find a lead by tomorrow so we can plan by Saturday.”

With the meeting done, we went our separate ways. Deen was desperate for a hot shower after her intense workout, so we returned to her house. I was pretty full from the greasy fast food I ate so I decided to go to bed early.

Another normal day done.